Meet the 5 mentors participating in Insider's first mentorship program for entrepreneurs
- In today's difficult labor market, founders are creating new DEI initiatives and benefits packages.
- Insider created a mentorship program as part of the Talent Insider series, in partnership with Indeed, to help five entrepreneurs.
Hiring and retaining strong talent is a struggle for small business owners in the challenging labor market.
In response, many entrepreneurs are trying to craft creative and welcoming initiatives around diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as benefits packages that both entice employees to stay and attract applicants. But they're facing stiff competition from big businesses with hefty budgets, and as a result, they may not be growing at the pace they'd prefer.
Insider created a mentorship program, in partnership with Indeed, to help five entrepreneurs navigate the labor market. We paired them with five experts to help them solve talent problems like hiring to scale, retaining employees, and increasing DEI efforts.
Here are the five mentors, their backgrounds in business, and how they can help their mentees.
Leslie Neitzel
Name: Leslie Neitzel
Title: Chief human-resources officer
Business: Carrot Fertility
Business description: Carrot offers fertility benefits regardless of a person's age, race, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or geography.
Founded: 2016
Size: 335 employees
Headquarters: Remote
Age: 48
Pronouns: she/her/hers
Experience: Neitzel has experience building benefit plans at small and large organizations. She understands how business owners can offer low-cost but effective benefits to help entrepreneurs, like her mentee, attract and retain employees.
Mentee: Aisha Taylor Issah, Sistahs in Business Expo
Rhonda Moret
Name: Rhonda Moret
Title: Founder
Business: Elevated Diversity
Business description: Elevated Diversity, a DEI training and consulting firm, offers programs addressing issues such as unconscious bias, antiracism, and inclusive leadership, as well as consulting services.
Founded: 2017
Size: 10 employees
Headquarters: San Diego, California
Age: 57
Pronouns: she/her/hers
Experience: Moret, who started her career from a communications-strategist perspective, believes one of her strengths is the ability to look at a situation and determine the opportunities and areas to bolster. At Elevated Diversity, she helps organizations explain and communicate their DEI initiatives so employees are aware of and can engage in them.
Mentee: Rachel Schneider, Canary
Bernard Coleman III
Name: Bernard Coleman III
Title: Chief diversity and engagement officer
Business: Gusto
Business description: Gusto is a payroll, benefits, and HR platform designed for small businesses. Through his role, Coleman helps entrepreneurs build an employee journey that attracts and retains workers, while also helping companies build DEI policies.
Founded: 2011
Size: 2,400 employees
Headquarters: San Francisco, California
Age: 44
Pronouns: he/him/his
Experience: Coleman leads the employee-engagement team at Gusto, which focuses on DEI and employee relations. Previously, he was the global head of inclusive engagement at Uber.
Mentee: Zhe Scott, The SEO Queen
Judy Nam
Name: Judy Nam
Title: Vice president of SMB marketing
Business: Indeed
Description of her role: Nam works with Indeed's hiring products, which aim to help small business owners with hiring, understanding their customers, and overcoming problems.
Founded: 2004
Size: 13,300 employees
Headquarters: Austin, Texas
Age: 44
Pronouns: she/her/hers
Experience: Nam has been working with small businesses for the past 15 years. She spent 11 years at Google focused on a small-business products and is the child of an immigrant small-business owner.
Mentee: Hans Schrei, Wunderkeks
Donna Harris
Name: Donna Harris
Title: Founder and CEO
Business: Builders and Backers
Business description: Builders and Backers is a venture-capital fund that frequently works with companies in fintech, healthcare, education, and civil society.
Founded: 2021
Size: 10 full-time employees, plus a rotating group of project-based experts and mentors who work with new investees
Headquarters: Arlington, Virginia
Age: 54
Pronouns: she/her/hers
Experience: Harris' expertise in business development comes from a decade of working as an investor. She's invested in companies such as Guild Education, ID.me, Pacaso, NXCR, and Twiga. She's also been an entrepreneur.
Mentee: Deidre Mathis, Wanderstay Hospitality Group
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